Social cognition and frontal lobe pathology in schizophrenia: a voxel-based morphometric study

Impaired social cognition in schizophrenia is considered as the core contributor in the poor psychosocial functioning of schizophrenic patients. In this study, in order to better understand the neurobiological processes underlying social dysfunction in schizophrenia, we investigated regional structural brain abnormalities and emotion-attribution abilities in these patients. Twenty schizophrenic patients and 20 group-matched healthy comparison participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and were examined for emotion-attribution abilities by using the Perception of Affect Task (PAT). Voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was applied to investigate regional brain structural alterations. Relative to the healthy participants, the schizophrenic patients exhibited reduced gray matter concentrations in the left superior temporal gyrus, the medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), right anterior cingulate gyrus, bilateral ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, and right insula. The schizophrenic patients performed poorly on emotion-attribution tasks. Importantly, poor performance on emotion attribution to protagonists in social situations was found to be associated with reductions in gray matter in the MPFC of the patient group. This preliminary result suggests that in schizophrenia, difficulties in understanding the emotional experiences of others are possible manifestations of structural abnormalities in the MPFC. This study provides the neurobiological correlates of social dysfunction in schizophrenia and links structural abnormalities with impaired social cognitive abilities.